


such selfish prayers (I can’t get enough)

by heartunsettledsoul



Series: Forgotten Moments [15]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: 2.18 post ep, Canon Compliant, a night to remember, bughead - Freeform, but neither of them have any clue what she needs, canon compliant until canon takes this out back and shoots it, in which betty is definitely about to fall into PTSD, post-ep, there may or may not be frantic life-affirming sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-26 20:30:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14410002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartunsettledsoul/pseuds/heartunsettledsoul
Summary: There are other, smaller thoughts ricocheting through his brain—how the hell is this happening again and what if he comes for Fred Andrews again and oh my god Midge has been in at least one class with him every year since middle school and did he catch anything shady while documenting the show?—but top priority is to follow the flash of blonde hair he saw disappear behind the backstage drapes after the balance of the cast staggered out to see what happened.or, there's a lot going on in the aftermath of 2.18 (canon compliant through that episode)





	1. Chapter 1

Screaming. Tears. Panicked bodies clamoring over each other in an effort to escape. Sheriff Keller shouting into his walkie. 

 

It’s utter chaos in the Riverdale High auditorium, adrenaline and fear palpable in the thick air of the room. Alice Cooper skitters backwards off the stage, rushing away from blood pooling below Midge Klump’s lifeless body—odd, when Jughead knows just a few weeks before, she had mopped up the same amount of blood from an equally lifeless body, all in the name of protecting her children. One of whom is the same age as the dead girl on stage. 

 

The same child for whom Jughead is crashing through the crowd to reach. Amidst the screams and bedlam, only one thought is clear in his head, through a series of events: get to Betty, make sure she’s alright, keep her safe. 

 

There are other, smaller thoughts ricocheting through his brain— _ how the  _ hell  _ is this happening again  _ and _ what if he comes for Fred Andrews again  _ and _ oh my god Midge has been in at least one class with him every year since middle school  _ and  _ did he catch anything shady while documenting the show? _ —but top priority is to follow the flash of blonde hair he saw disappear behind the backstage drapes after the balance of the cast staggered out to see what happened. 

 

He is so used to locating Betty by her signature ponytail and, though he’s been thoroughly enjoying seeing her hair falling across her face in soft 70s curls over the past weeks, he is now cursing its absence. 

 

So much is happening as Jughead vaults onto the stage, doing his best to not look directly at the blood of his classmate. Chuck Clayton is bodily pushing Moose backwards, trying to stop the trauma of letting his teammate and friend see his girlfriend in that manner; Ethel and several of the other chorus actors are white as ghosts, clutching their stomachs as nausea churns at the cloying scent of fresh blood; Veronica is sobbing into Archie’s chest and Archie’s eyes are wide with fear. 

 

(Their friendship is still healing, the fractures only just mending back together after weeks stuck together in this damn auditorium and Jughead trying to let go of his anger over Hiram Lodge, over what Archie is blindly agreeing to. It still simmers under the surface, but Jughead’s empathy overtakes it in that moment. This is the killer that shot Archie’s dad, that haunted him for months. He has the urge to pause and hug his childhood best friend, his de facto brother. But he’ll come back to this. He needs Betty first.) 

 

Jughead’s unspoken question is answered with a shrug of confusion from Archie, which only kicks up his blind panic.   “Jug!” He knows immediately by the voice that it isn’t Betty, but turns anyway. Toni, presumably on the phone with Cheryl, pulls her phone away to catch his attention and point toward the backstage exit.  Exploding through the doorway, Jughead feels a blast of cool air knock into him and it’s only then that he realizes how strong the smell of blood was inside. The twist around his chest eases a little when he sees Betty leaning against a dumpster, bent over and throwing up. Over the sound of retching and the muted yelling, he can hear her crying. 

 

“Betts,” he calls out softly, trying to alert her to his presence before he places a hand on her back, not wanting to scare her—because they’re in this world of fear again, where Betty lived just months before, afraid of an anonymous monolith of a monster clawing its way into her every thought and movement. 

 

As she turns, Betty wipes the back of her hand across her mouth and her face crumples into full-on sobs as she reaches out for him, tears flowing in full force and streaking through her heavy stage makeup. “I can’t do this again,” she wails. When Jughead wraps his arms around her tiny frame, she’s shaking violently and every fiber of his being aches with concern, knowing that the last time Betty was in this position he had his head too far up his own ass to realize her torment. 

 

If this is happening again, she’s not going it alone. He won’t let her. 

.

.

.

Too many hours of their lives are spent in the Riverdale Sheriff Department offices. Keller and his deputies are overwhelmed by the number of  _ Carrie  _ cast members that need to give statements, but Jughead, Betty, Archie, and Veronica stay huddled together in the waiting room the longest, opting to let the other students who  _ haven’t  _ done this already this year get in and out as quickly as possible. 

 

Betty and Veronica have scrubbed their faces of the caked stage makeup, courtesy of the makeup wipes Mrs. Lodge brought in by the dozen for the hoard of crying, exhausted actors. She’d smiled widely and graciously, the hidden motive making Jughead grit his teeth. Chic, of all people, shows up with changes of clothes for both Alice and Betty, speaking words of comfort that don’t reach his stoic face and unblinking eyes. Betty regards him with complete skepticism but still accepts the hoodie in his outstretched hands, slipping it over her head and mutely burrowing even further into Jughead’s lap. 

 

She hasn’t spoken since Jughead found her outside the theater, remaining deathly silent as they walked around to the front parking lot of the school to find Sheriff Keller, the entire ride on Jughead’s motorcycle to the station, and the three hours they’ve been sitting and waiting. Everyone is, naturally, subdued. But Veronica and Archie are murmuring soft assurances to each other; Kevin, tuxedo askew, carries on a lengthy but hushed conversation with Fangs and Toni, whose hand is held by the most un-put-together Cheryl Blossom the town has seen, wet hair tied messily and oversized sweater slipping over her shoulders. 

 

It’s quiet, but there’s a humming of barely-contained chaos. 

 

But if Betty is feeling the unruliness internally, she isn’t showing it. She nods in thanks when FP and Sweet Pea come in laden with enough bags of Pop’s takeout to feed an army, Sweet Pea handing her a milkshake before setting down the bulk of the food. In response to FP coming over and asking, “Your mom alright?” after Jughead gives him the quick rundown of events, she merely shrugs and hangs her head in her hands. 

 

His father shoots him a look of mild alarm, equally caught off guard by Betty being so un-Betty-like. (It doesn’t escape him that the last time the Black Hood was making threats, Betty  _ had  _ been acting distinctly un-Betty-like, but nobody took notice.) 

 

Presumably, she speaks when Keller calls her in to take her statement. He can’t know for sure because when he stood up to go with her, Keller looks at him with something strangely close to pity and says, “Sorry, son. You know it’s protocol,” before leading Betty away, alone. 

 

Keller calls in Jughead immediately after Betty and he feels a flash of panic at leaving her for so long. Veronica takes over for him, wrapping the blonde they both love in her arms, and mouthing  _ I’ve got her  _ to Jughead from over Betty’s shoulder. For the first time in his life, Jughead is complacent and agreeable with a member of law enforcement. He wants to speed this up, get back to Betty, so he rambles quickly through the series of notes and bizarre presumed-pranks leading up to this evening.  The exhaustion hits him like a ton of bricks when he concludes, trailing off with, “I was just in the crowd after curtain call, so I don’t know anything else.” Sheriff Keller gives him a curt nod and moves to open the door. He looks as miserable as Jughead feels. “I dropped the camera in the, uh, aftermath. But I have backups of everything before tonight if you need.”  

 

Neither Alice nor Hal (or FP, for that matter) are anywhere to be found when they’re ready to go, so Jughead takes the liberty of texting Alice via Betty’s phone that she’s staying with him. He briefly considers lying and saying she’ll be with Veronica, lest Alice come barging through the trailer door guns a-blazing, but in light of tonight’s events, Jughead knows the smartest thing is just to make sure she knows exactly where to find her daughter. 

 

When there’s not a response, he scrolls through contacts to find Hal and Chic, texting them each for good measure. Betty is slumped against his shoulder, awake but just barely. 

 

“Can you stay upright if we take my bike back?” She nods sleepily—silently—and they race through the still night air as fast as the ancient motor lets them. There’s something comforting about the soft lighting and slight musty smell of the Jones’ trailer when they come through the door. It’s never really been _home_ to Jughead, not with the absence of his mother and sister and the addition of his father’s empty liquor bottles, but it always feels a little closer to something that _could_ be home whenever Betty is there. It’s been long enough since Alice forced Betty to move home that his pillows and blankets no longer smell like her floral shampoo and the cupboards are empty again, but Betty fits right back into place as she enters the threshold. Everything in his world feels lighter, easier with Betty around. Even the brutal murder of (another) classmate.

 

But Betty still hasn’t said anything to him and his frayed nerves are edging back into panic. He kneels in front of where she sits on the couch, the delicate balance of things feeling very similar to the night of Veronica’s confirmation when they sat on this couch and trying to find their way back to each other. “Betty, baby, please say something. You’re starting to worry me.” 

 

She blinks, eyes sliding back into focus to meet his gaze. Finally,  _ finally,  _ Betty speaks. “I want to shower. I can still smell the blood.” 

 

“Okay,” he whispers, ducking down briefly to cradle her hands in his and press a kiss to them. It’s Jughead’s not-so-subtle way of checking for broken skin on her palms, they both know it, and he’s grateful to find that there are no fresh marks. He turns on the water for her to give the shitty water heater time to warm up and then digs through his drawers for the set of pajamas she keeps there. All he can find is a pair of cotton shorts with little red hearts on them, so he grabs those and one of his clean shirts, along with the freshest towel he can find and hands them to Betty, who now stands at the doorway of the bedroom. 

 

Wordlessly, she takes the pile and moves into the bathroom. Sighing, and entirely unsure what the hell one is supposed to do to help their traumatized, half-catatonic girlfriend, Jughead slips out of his jeans and crawls into the bed. If FP isn’t home at 2am to claim it, then he doesn’t want to know where his father is. 

 

Betty seems to need time without him hovering and he can’t blame her—even without tonight’s events, they have been glued to each other since their reunion, trying to soak in every ounce of time lost. He knows better than most that sometimes being completely alone is more reassuring than six different people asking if you’re alright. She’ll talk to him when she’s ready; he has next to no doubt that they’re in a solid enough place that neither of them will run from the other in the name of protection anymore. Jughead flips off the bedroom lights and scrubs a hand across his face because he is bone tired and has been up for twenty hours straight, but his brain is running at breakneck speed. 

 

There’s too many questions and more than enough  _ what if’s _ and at the heart of is all is this:  _ what if the Black Hood comes for Betty again?  _

 

For good measure, Jughead rummages for Betty’s phone and texts Veronica, Archie, and Alice to reach her on his phone before switching hers off. He wasn’t there the first time around but remembers Betty’s shaky voice telling him how terrorizing it was every time her phone lit up, worrying that it was another phone call. He doesn’t want her to have to worry about that right now, she just needs to rest. 

 

He’s staring at the ceiling when the wash of light indicates Betty exiting the bathroom. The familiar scent of her fresh soap hits his nose—along with extra clothes, Betty still keeps some key toiletries at the trailer—and the need to hold her almost knocks him breathless. He waits, though, until he feels the mattress dip under her weight and then rolls toward her.  

 

Before he has the chance to reach for her, she is on top of him, actually kissing him breathless. Jughead is too startled to react immediately, but he’s still a teenager so it’s only a brief moment before he’s meeting the rhythm of her lips sliding over his. This probably isn’t the right reaction to a trauma, he thinks, before Betty rolls her hips down sharply and wipes any coherent thought from his mind. She must be able to sense his hesitancy though because Betty separates their mouths with a pop.

 

“Please,” she whispers in a voice he know he can’t refuse. “I need this. I need to feel alive.” 

 

Her hand is already down the front of his sweats, palming him, and Jughead resolves to do everything he can to make this bed their port in the storm. If alive is how she wants to feel, then alive is what she’ll get, he thinks as he makes quick work of her sinfully small sleep shorts and crawls down to bite the inside of her thigh. Betty’s loud whimper gives him pause but the fingers threading through his hair and directing his mouth to her center tell him otherwise. 

 

She isn’t as quiet as she usually is—they’re still new to this, but being the observant writer he is, Jughead catalogues every moment of their love-making into his memory both so he can remember exactly what makes Betty Cooper feel good and so he himself never forgets that she chose him, she loves  _ him _ . Unsure if she’s trying to put on some sort of ...show for him, maybe to prove that she’s alright and she isn’t scared or fragile, Jughead replaces his tongue with the pad of his thumb as he kisses up to her ear to whisper softly, “Betts, you don’t need to pretend with me.” 

 

A shuddery sigh escapes her and she squeezes her eyes shut against the tears that well in her eyes. It hits her like a wave, how completely loved she feels in his presence, like she’s invincible, even when she knows she’s not. “I’m not,” she answers, hoping the promise in her voice is strong enough. It’s not even evident to Betty whether she’s being honest, but she wants to be and hopes she is. All she wants is to feel something other than paralyzing fear and above all she wants to feel confident in the bond between her and Jughead. They’ve already been through hell and back, and she knows they’re stronger for it, but there’s still the small, terrified part of her that isn’t sure if they’ll survive this again. 

 

“Please,” she whispers once more, needier this time, lifting her hips up to seek more friction against his dexterous fingers. 

 

He gives it to her, gives her everything he has in his heart and then some. Betty is loud and Jughead  _ really  _ likes it. He helps her to feel safe and alive by pushing the boundaries of their intimacy so they both can feel solid and real. Her fingernails rake up the toned muscles of his back, he holds onto her hips with a bruising force, their kisses are so ferocious that teeth clash and lips are bitten until they taste blood. Every whimper and moan out of her mouth urges Jughead on until they’re both groaning in pleasure, Betty biting into the crook of his neck to muffle her scream as she comes and Jughead snapping his hips harshly into hers. 

 

As they lay tangled in each other, spent and shaking as the adrenaline drains from each of them, Betty traces light patterns into skin of his chest. Her voice is so, so small when she speaks and it nearly cracks his heart in two to see this vulnerability intensified by their state of undress and the darkness that serves as their blanket. “I don’t want it to drive us apart again.” 

 

“It won’t,” he swears. “I’m with you every step of the way. Whatever happens.”  Betty eventually falls asleep, curled in closely to his side while he rests a protective hand across her back. For the entirety of the night, Jughead remains awake, keeping watch in a way he wasn’t able to before. 

.

.

.

_ tbc _


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I got 2k into this second half and realized I was never going to finish all I had laid out in two parts. and here we are. #predictable 
> 
> and just a moment to sincerely thank everyone for their comments & love. I'm blown away and so grateful.

Betty keeps waking up, screaming.

 

When Alice insists she come home—yet again—Betty tries to put a brave face on for Jughead. He looks beyond pained in worry for her and, for the tiniest of moments, she almost wishes he couldn't see through her, still saw her as the Perfect Betty Cooper, unfazed by all. 

 

It's silly, she knows, because she spent her entire adolescence praying that someone would look at her as simply Betty, a normal human being. But in this deeply unsettled state of total fear and anxiety—as if the first time wasn't enough—she can't help but bristle even more under the caring, watchful, protective eye of her loving boyfriend. 

 

She wants so badly to be alright, which is why it pains her even more not to be. 

 

So she tells Jughead she will be okay at home. She's shaken and scared, but she's done this once before. She’ll be  _ fine.  _

 

The first nightmare proves her wrong, a warped slideshow of everybody she loves and cares about pinned to the auditorium curtain by knives. In her Sue-costume heels, Betty slips on the blood of Polly, then Jughead, then Veronica, Archie, her mother, Jughead again, and on and on. 

 

After she wakes up for the third time in as many hours, clutching her chest at her dream-shriek turning into a real one, Betty calls Jughead. The words  _ can you come over _ aren’t even all the way out of her mouth before he answers with a rushed  _ on my way _ , and she can hear the trailer door slam in the background of the call. Even though it’s slower than his bike, Jughead drives the ancient pickup truck over to Elm Street, opting for the vehicle that allows him to stay on the line with Betty and list his favorite Pop’s menu items in ascending order to keep her awake and distracted. 

 

An ache in his chest that’s been growing ever stronger in the hours since opening night of  _ Carrie  _ twinges sharply as he throws the truck into park and leaps out of the cab, beelining for the discarded ladder in the Andrews’ yard—the last time he climbed through Betty’s window, everything was so different. His chest had been thumping for an entirely different reason that day. 

 

It twinges again when Jughead realizes this is the second time in mere weeks that Betty called him, late at night and completely at her wits’ end, for help and assurance. He is so,  _ so  _ glad they are back to the point where they’ll run toward each other in crisis, instead of pulling back and lashing out. 

 

If only their circumstances would stop throwing them into crisis altogether. 

 

Betty looks so small, curled up in a ball on her window-seat as she waits for him to reach the top rung of the ladder, peering down at him from red-rimmed eyes. There’s the tiniest hint of a smile when she first sees him, but it bleeds almost entirely into relief. Even though they’ve just been on the phone together, there’s the latent fear that the Black Hood has managed to get to Jughead in the ninety seconds between him hanging up as he parked and reaching Betty’s window. 

 

He’s out of breath and ready to make a crack about his shit athletic abilities, but Betty is already crying again and he settles for just kissing the tear tracks on her cheeks before holding her. Briefly Jughead wonders if, across the yard, Archie is experiencing the same reactionary fear; the redhead’s bedroom is dark, but then again, so is Betty’s. And Betty is, through her sobs, fighting to tear his clothes off. 

 

Much as his hormones and certain southern regions of his body are more than willing to engage in another round of frantic, needy, life-affirming sex, it doesn’t feel right in this moment. 

 

(Not that anything in this moment, anything in this  _ week _ , this whole damn school year, feels right but that’s beside the point.)

 

“Betts, Betts, slow down,” Jughead mumbles against forceful-but-not-unwelcome attack of her lips on his. It’s a repeat action of the night before, but now Betty is reaching her warm hand down the front of his pants in an effort to gain the higher ground in the situation and turn him on so much he doesn’t have any blood left in his brain to think. 

 

He doesn’t  _ want  _ to think, but he definitely wants to understand why Betty called him at 2:14am—and he’s fairly certain it’s not because she woke up with the insatiable urge to crawl into his lap and fuck him, which is what she’s currently trying to do. Jughead uses one hand to pull Betty’s out of his boxers and the other to gently push her back far enough to look into her eyes. She’s crying still and there’s a hardened determination there, on a mission specifically to distract him so he won’t ask what happened. 

 

They’re only just exploring the sexual side of their relationship and while Jughead now has an erection he can’t ignore and a shirtless Betty Cooper in his lap—when did that  _ happen,  _ he thinks in bewilderment—the overwhelming urge to take care of her and not ruin their sex life by turning it into something they wield over the other person wins the battle against his surging hormones. Jughead just has to get that message across to  _ Betty’s  _ hormones, or emotional distress or what have you, which are propelling her to her knees in front of him on the window-seat where she tries to yank down his sweats and reach back into his boxers. 

 

This  _ absolutely  _ is not the context in which he wants this to happen for the first time. 

 

“Betty,” he says more forcefully, using both hands to grip her shoulders and push her back. “We are not doing this right now.” 

 

A flash of something crosses her green eyes, which look almost dangerous as the moonlight bounces off them. “Why  _ not,”  _ she snaps. “Why does everybody except me get to use to sex to solve their problems? Why do I have to be the fragile one who needs to be taken care of because unless I’m perfect, dependable Betty goddamn Cooper, I have to be the damsel in distress whose boyfriend will come to her rescue at three in the goddamn morning but won’t fuck her because she’s too broken.  _ Why is that, Jughead?”  _

 

It’s like some unknown dam deep inside Betty burst open, unleashing a flood of pent up anger and sadness and self-doubt. Because for as furious as her tone and words were, her voice cracks on Jughead’s name and she dissolves into shaking sobs. There are too many emotions swirling around her head, too much chaos in their world for anything to make sense to her. The previous night she had been numb from shock and fear, turning to intimacy to remind herself that there’s still some good left in her life—Jughead. Jughead, who made her feel safe, cherished, and at home in her body; Jughead, who had been through it all with her these past few months, despite them pushing each other way; Jughead, who could make her laugh in delight and then moan in pleasure in the span of twenty seconds, who had helped her feel alive last night, in the wake of so much death and destruction, by creating a cocoon of love and earth-shattering sex; Jughead, who she had just screamed at for wanting to make sure she's alright. 

 

Where last night her mind had been deathly still, now it’s a raging storm. It’s too much. 

 

All she wanted after the flashes of horror permeating her dreams was Jughead, to know he was safe and not going anywhere. He is one of the most important things in Betty’s life and they swore they’d stop doing this, stop hurting each other to keep the other safe. 

 

Exhaustion rolls over her body and Betty crumples on the floor of her too-pink bedroom, wearing no shirt or bra, sobbing in front of a clearly-concerned Jughead who is awkwardly trying to stave off a raging erection while helping her get her shirt back on. When they’re both dressed and wrapped together under Betty’s comforter, Jughead rubs a soothing hand over her back while the tears subside. 

 

“For the record,” he says with a soft smirk in his voice. “I’d like to first time you cry during sex to be because I just rocked your world, not because our classmate was murdered by a psycho who stalked you.” 

 

He thinks he’s pushed her back into sobs, her body shaking underneath him and he mentally kicks himself. It’s only after he hears a different noise escape her mouth that he realizes she’s laughing. 

.

.

.

If Alice Cooper has any opinions on waking up to find Jughead Jones in her daughter’s bed, she doesn’t voice them when the two teenagers stumble downstairs for coffee. Betty is still too on edge to be alone, so she drags Jughead downstairs hand in hand, bedhead and kiss-swollen lips be damned. 

 

Jughead opens his mouth to apologize, but Alice stops him by pressing a mug of coffee into his hands. “If it means you’re not both wandering around town out in the open, I don’t care. You  _ will  _ be sleeping on the floor with the door open tonight, though.” 

 

He gives a curt nod in acknowledgement.  Could’ve been worse,  he thinks. Apparently another murdered teen means parents are learning to choose their battles. 

 

The next few days drag on. School is closed—evidently when the teen student is murdered on-stage, in the school itself, the school board is more than willing to take the year-end hit—not many people leave their homes, and when they do, the town is eerily silent. 

 

Alice pointedly unrolls an old camping sleeping bag on Betty’s bedroom floor and FP brings his son his laptop and a backpack of belongings to tide him over while he stays. It’s a bizarre role reversal of just a few weeks prior, Jughead becoming part of Betty’s home world and enjoying the amenities like decent water pressure and a couch that doesn’t smell musty as hell, though Alice and FP seem to be even more at odds with each other than before. 

 

They fall into a pattern. Late at night, after Alice has her second glass of wine and goes to bed, Jughead quietly slips out of the rustling sleeping bag and slides under Betty’s covers. He sets an alarm for 5:25am to wake him up just before Alice’s own alarm goes off so he can open up Betty’s door and fall asleep on the floor again. 

 

In the hours between, a few things will happen: with all the space Betty’s full-sized bed allows, they take turns moving down below the covers to place warm mouths on sensitive flesh, making love quietly but just as passionately as the night after the musical; they’ll talk evidence and theories and  _ why Midge, why any of them _ ; they’ll fall asleep holding each other for stretches of time, sometimes waking up naturally to sleepy kisses and soft smiles, other times waking abruptly, Jughead jerking awake violently in response to Betty’s screams, which are loud from another visceral vision of either the bloodied bodies of her loved ones or the hollow sound of dirt on a coffin lid as she is forced to bury them all alive. 

 

She may be physically safe in his arms at night, but nothing and no one can stop the horrors that Betty’s subconscious unleashes on her. 

.

.

.

Betty’s cell phone remains off but Jughead still catches her worried glances toward where it sits on her dresser, screen dark. She jumps ever so slightly whenever his own phone vibrates—there’s a few messages he fields from Veronica, who still seems to be tiptoeing around the both of them, despite everyone’s tentative reunions, and calls from Fangs and Toni about Serpent meetings that he blows off, remembering all too well how his past deference to the Southside and the Serpents left Betty completely vulnerable and alone. 

 

On the sixth call from Toni he ignores, Betty finally says something. “You can pick up, Jug. I know you’re not going anywhere. I doubt in the two minutes you talk with her that the Black Hood will climb through the window, silently snatch me, and slit your throat without you noticing." 

 

Jughead blinks. 

 

“I’ve found that gallows humor helps,” Betty shrugs. 

 

(He’d believe her more if she hadn’t flinched when his phone lit up.) 

 

Alice is back at The Register that afternoon, suffering through a shares meeting with Hal and the Lodges so they can at least maintain print runs in the midst of yet another town crisis, so Betty and Jughead are taking full advantage of the lack of parental supervision. In the wake of her meltdown, Betty’s penchant for desperate sex has dampened slightly, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t furiously making out on the couch when Jughead’s phone rang. 

 

As Jughead maneuvers himself upright to call Toni back, Betty gets up to grab water from the kitchen. Neither of them are paying attention, which is why they miss Kevin sprinting up Elm Street, passing the front windows up the Cooper house, and leaping up the front steps to pound on the front door. 

 

The sudden, violent noise startles both Betty and Jughead but where Jughead just swears, Betty shrieks, drops the water glass, and cowers to the floor. A frantic “ _ Betty?!”  _ comes through muffled by the front door and Jughead rushes over to check on her.  

 

“ _ It’s Kevin, let me in!!”  _ can be heard as Jughead carefully kneels around the broken glass to cradle Betty's cheek in his palm. When he tilts her face toward his, her eyes are shining with tears and she’s trembling all over. 

 

“I think I’m bleeding,” she says feebly, looking at her hands. 

 

She is. For what Jughead knows is probably the umpteenth time in her life, Betty’s palms are slick with fresh blood and he can physically feel the crack in his heart when he thinks about it. He is beyond grateful that the wound isn’t self-inflicted, but it doesn’t make the image of Betty, bleeding and scared, any less upsetting. 

 

He grabs a dish towel at random and wraps her palm in it. “Let me just go let Kevin in before he breaks down your mom’s brand new door.” 

 

As soon as he slides the deadbolt, Kevin Keller, in all his glory, barrels through the doorway. “What the  _ hell,  _ Jughead?! I called Betty to tell her the services for Midge were scheduled and it went right to voicemail and I assumed the worst. Why is her phone off?!” 

 

It takes all his effort not to punch Kevin in the gut for his stupidity and Jughead only holds back because he knows it will upset Betty—and because, including his current panic, Kevin appears to be mildly worse for wear after discovering a second classmate’s dead body. He probably doesn’t need an ass kicking on top of that (although after seeing him wrestle, Jughead supposes he’d be just as in danger of getting his own ass kicked if he tried anything). 

 

“ _ Because,”  _ Jughead says, before looking pointedly at where Betty is crouched on the kitchen floor. “We are trying to avoid certain unwanted, blocked-number callers trying to harass her again.” 

 

From the floor, Betty waves at Kevin with her uninjured hand and gives him a weak smile. 

.

.

.

In light of Kevin’s panic, school reopening, and the impending funeral services, Jughead takes Betty on a very romantic date to the electronics store in Centreville to buy her a disposable, pay-as-you-go cell phone. 

 

Rising Nancy Drew that she is, Betty is kind of delighted by the idea of her first ever burner phone. It’s only the circumstances that bring her crashing back down to earth. They sit in their booth at a deserted Pop’s to sip on much needed milkshakes—”On the house,” Pop insists, with an extra warm smile toward Betty, who deflates slightly as yet another person correctly assumes she’s a mess—and program a few key numbers into the crappy, 00s-era flip phone. 

 

Jughead is speed dial one, followed by Alice, and then Kevin. They consider adding in Archie and Veronica, but everything feels so tenuous between the two pairs of best friends and they decide that maybe a few more days without interacting could do them all some good. 

 

Midge’s funeral is the next day, so—at her insistence that she wants to see if she can manage a few hours alone—Jughead reluctantly drops Betty off at home before heading back to Sunnyside for fresh laundry and his borrowed suit. Everything about this feels eerily similar, yet so infinitely different, from Jason’s death and funeral just months before. It was back before they were  _ Betty and Jughead,  _ the singular unit, but well on their way to becoming so. He’d been so nervous, coming up to Betty’s bedroom for the first time since they were ten years old, self-conscious in his hand-me-down suit and feeling uniquely untethered by the girl who’d reminded him that it’s nice to not always be the weirdo loner in a corner. 

 

And now he’s wearing the same suit, filling out the shoulders a bit more than before, on his way to return to that pink bedroom where he’s been staying to comfort and protect the childhood best friend who loves him back and wants him in her life, her bed, her world. 

 

So much can change. But they’re still going to a funeral for a teenage murder victim.  __

.

_. _

_. _

_ tbc  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stay tuned for more, I guess? likely after canon takes this idea out back and shoots it, but a girl can dream that this show might actually make intelligent writing decisions about characters' emotional growth. either way, this is where we're at. 
> 
> as always, please comment/review if you read & enjoy! 
> 
> find me on tumblr under the same handle


	3. Chapter 3

The morning of Midge’s funeral, Jughead wakes up to voices and the sound of dishes clinking. He falls asleep hard after grumbling at his alarm and leaving Betty’s warm grasp to get in the sleeping bag devoid of body heat. She shifts in her sleep but doesn’t wake up and he’s grateful. She only woke up twice that night, screaming just the one time. 

 

There’s an extra body at the kitchen table when he emerges for coffee. Chic has returned. 

 

Alice looks unfathomably happy and Betty looks livid. She’s still in her pajamas, stiffly sitting in the kitchen chair and staring directly into her orange juice. Her shoulders are tense when Jughead places a comforting hand on one before dropping a kiss to the crown of her head, and he feels her relax slightly. 

 

Shockingly, Alice smiles at him for his gesture and says a cheerful  _ good morning.  _ Chic merely glares. A standoff is brewing between the two of them and if this insanely creepy dude does anything to upset Betty today, Jughead is fully prepared to unleash holy hell toward him on her behalf. 

 

“What are you doing here,” Jughead asks flatly, staring Chic down from where he stands behind Betty. 

 

Emotionless eyes stare back at him. A sneer comes in response. “Having breakfast with my mom and sister. What are  _ you  _ doing here?” 

 

Jughead narrows his eyes. “Making sure Betty feels  _ safe.  _ In her own home. Seems like such a novel concept, huh Chic?” 

 

Miraculously, Alice silences whatever Chic’s retaliatory comment was going to be with an eyebrow raise. Redirecting the conversation, she turns to Betty, whose barely containing rage at Chic’s presence is making her clench her fists. Jughead rubs gentle circles into the back of her neck with his thumbs and feels instant relief when he can see Betty flex her hands out under the kitchen table. 

 

“Elizabeth, please make sure you bring that new phone of yours with you to the services today. I want to make sure I can reach you.” 

 

Chic’s head snaps up in attention, glancing in confusion to Alice and then Betty. “New phone?” he asks, considerably more interested in the topic at hand. “What happened, do you have a new number?” 

 

Alarm bells go off in Jughead’s mind.  

 

“What’s it matter to you,” he snaps harshly. Underneath his touch, Betty flinches at the volume of his voice and Jughead instantly feels the guilt wash over him. He’s still dancing on this thin line of what he can do to protect her without going so dark that he scares her, or hurts her in anyway. 

 

( _ God,  _ he is so tired of Betty being hurt. He doesn’t want to be the cause of it ever again.) 

 

Alice intervenes yet again, sending Betty and Jughead back upstairs to get ready for the funeral. Jughead keeps his hand on the small of her back as he guides her out of the room, glancing behind him to find Chic’s dead eyes glaring back at him. There’s something deeply unsettling about him, and now gears are slowly turning.  When Betty disappears into her closet to dig for her funeral dress—it had originally just been her only black dress, for rare occasions when she felt like diverging from the pastels but after Jason’s funeral it just felt too  _ tainted  _ to wear for a regular day—Jughead perches on her bed and tries to think through a timeline.

 

It drives him nuts to realize he barely even knows the timeline of events for round one with the Black Hood because how on the outs he and Betty were. And how entirely caught up he was in his own personal dramas. Betty gave him the Cliff Notes of the events leading up to sending Archie over to Sunnyside during their first tentative reunion, when they were still too fragile to fully trust, but somehow Archie instead became Jughead’s main source of information about the Black Hood, back before they were on the outs too.  

 

(If he didn’t know any better, Jughead might think all these fractured relationships had something to do with him. They do, in part, but he would be a lot harder on himself were this happening in the time before Betty Cooper settled into his heart and helped him realize his small amount of self-worth.) 

 

Whatever timeline he has is sketchy at best: Black Hood shoots Fred, Black Hood (presumably) murders Grundy, Black Hood tries and fails, this time at least, to kill Moose and Midge. Cue a small time lag, then Black Hood begins to stalk Betty. Betty suffers emotional torture, Black Hood goes into hiding, Black Hood comes back to torture Betty and Archie some more, Keller shoots the Black Hood. 

 

Cut to this past week: Black Hood brutally murders Midge on stage, after being bizarrely invested in a high school theater production’s casting choices. 

 

Clearly, the Black Hood wasn’t Svensen. But it’s not the only part of this twisted puzzle that doesn’t make sense. 

 

“Hey Betts?” he calls out. She hums in response from the depths of her closet. “Do you think it’s odd that immediately after the Black Hood disappeared that first time, Chic shows up?” Jughead knows it’s a stretch, likely that he’s looking for any reason to dislike Chic even more. But still, the coincidence bugs him. 

 

“I guess,” she says back. “But I’m the one who sought him out, remember?” 

 

Betty emerges from her closet, half dressed in the dress that seems so out of practice for her day to day life, but feels uniquely apt in the current chaos. 

 

Jughead can’t help but notice that black makes her creamy skin and light hair look almost angelic against the contrast of the dark fabric. The back zipper is undone and now Jughead’s hormones are the ones to take control of the situation as he catches a glimpse of the dark gray band of her bra and watches her slide tights up her thighs. He hates himself for his mind immediately jumping to the black number Betty wore that night at the Wyrm and hates himself even more for wondering if it’s still in her closet. 

 

Instead, he gets up and pauses Betty’s hands where they’re pulling tights onto her second foot. She looks confused for only a moment until the look in his eyes explains things. His mouth crashes onto hers, glad she hadn’t gotten far enough along to where her pink lipstick would smear against his face, and starts to tug the fabric off her leg. 

 

“Don’t rip them,” she chastises before yanking him by the soft collar of his sleep shirt until they’re horizontal on her unmade bed. With Jughead as the driving force of this encounter, and the time constraints, they make a small return to the hurried and frantic motions from a few nights before. Peeling the undone sleeves of her dress down gives Jughead a visceral memory of their first night  _ together  _ and he can’t help the needy jerk of his hips against hers now. 

 

They remain partially clothed, ostensibly for quick recovery, but it also creates an atmosphere of lusty thrill—the idea that they’re so wrapped up in their desire for each other that they couldn’t be bothered to undress all the way. The skirt of Betty’s dress flips up when she hooks one leg around Jughead’s hips and he merely shoves her underwear to one side to push two fingers inside her. He sucks at her collarbone, below where the neckline of her dress will fall, while she runs her nails up and down his back underneath his shirt. 

 

It isn’t long before she’s falling apart on his hand, breathy gasps echoing in his ear, and it pains him to separate their bodies for the thirty seconds it takes to kick off his boxers and roll on a condom. When they come together again some of the desperation is back, evident by Betty clinging to him for dear life and by the crushing grip Jughead keeps on her hipbones as he moves inside her. 

 

As Betty feels him bite down harshly on her bottom lip, it occurs to her that they’re probably too young to be at a point in their lives where they need to use sex to remind themselves that they’re still alive and capable of feeling. Then again, they’re probably too young to be dealing with murderous fathers and gang turf wars and serial killers and dead classmates, so what does it matter anyway. 

 

Something about this time feels different to her and she wonders if this is how Jughead felt the first two nights after Midge’s death—pouring every bit of himself into a physical act to help her remember how to breathe and to love—because the way he’s chanting  _ I love you’s  _ into her ear, in tandem with the thrust of his hips, makes Betty feel like he’s uttering a prayer that only she can hear. She does her best to answer it, running her fingers lovingly through his hair and trying to lift her hips in a cadence that matches his while she presses hot kisses against the column of his throat.

 

Jughead finishes with a groan that emanates something more than just the immediate pleasure, something suspiciously like sheer exhaustion and world-weariness. He looks down at Betty with a reverence that steals her breath away. 

 

“I love you,” she whispers. He smiles, but blinks a few times as though trying to reassure himself it’s not a dream. 

.

.

.

The cemetery is freezing and late-season snow falls in light flurries around the crowd of teens and parents alike. Betty and Jughead stand shoulder to shoulder with Veronica and Archie, the girls holding hands in the middle. The boys exchange nods, still not ready to completely forget their differences, but ready enough to stand in solidarity against a common, unknown enemy. 

 

There’s a lot of weeping, as to be expected, and it makes Jughead pointedly uncomfortable. Most things about graveyards and funerals make him uncomfortable, but being here is important to Betty so here is where he stands. 

 

He holds her other hand, squeezing gently when he can feel her shivering in the cold and when he sees tears fall down her cheeks. 

 

The service is nice, but he’s not paying as much attention as he should. Most of his attention is diverted to the wiry frame of Chic, swamped in a suit jacket twice his size, standing alongside Alice on the opposite end of the gathered crowd. As soon as Alice announced that she and Chic decided to join—“It’s only right,” Alice says, while Chic says nothing but tries and fails to school his expression into appropriate empathy—Jughead went on high alert. 

 

Jughead is deeply on edge and very close to doing something incredibly stupid. But something about all this isn’t right and Betty is still barely holding it together, and that is what propels him to pull Sweet Pea aside after the service ends. 

 

Fangs and Sweet Pea are there to support Toni, who is there to support Cheryl, and Jughead wonders whether this whole dynamic might have been different if they were all born into the same universe. Of his Southside friends, Sweet Pea seems the most likely to go along with a spectacularly stupid and dangerous idea, even if he tends to hate Jughead half the time. But he’s not one to turn down a fight, which is why the tall teen grins ruefully and only says, “Just tell me when and where.” 

 

Neither of them notice Toni eyeing them with worry, contemplating whether imminent idiocy is a valid reason to do her friends bodily harm. 

 

What Toni does end up doing, though, is place a well-timed call to Betty Cooper later that day. 

.

.

.

As soon as Jughead and Sweet Pea drag a blindfolded and bloody Chic into the basement of the White Wyrm, Jughead knows he’s made a crossroads choice he can’t come back from. It certainly doesn’t escape him that this basement is where it all began—where Cliff Blossom murdered his own son and Jughead’s own father helped clean it up, where the heart of the murder investigation that threw him and Betty into each other’s lives again lies. And now he’s back here, using his fists to discern whether this piece of garbage is the one who stalked, harassed, and made Betty’s life a living hell.

 

Chic is crying his loud, fake cry that Betty once said sounds like a dying cat. It’s so bad it’s nearly believable. Once Sweet Pea lands a particularly strong punch to his stomach, it may actually be real.    

 

Jughead doesn’t like this version of himself, the one that left Betty crying in a dark parking lot or that sliced a tattoo off a woman’s arm. It makes him feel unhinged and like he’s heading down a path his father followed at his age but could have ignored. He doesn’t  _ want  _ to become this person. 

 

But he will if it means keeping Betty safe. 

 

“I’m asking you again, Chic,” Jughead says in an even voice. “Who the  _ hell  _ are you?” When he gets no response, Jughead nods to Sweet Pea, who yanks Chic’s head upright by his hair so he has no choice but to meet Jughead’s eye. “Did you,” Jughead flexes his fingers. “Or did you not,” he slides on the borrowed brass knuckles and closes his fist. “Stalk Betty and put her through emotional hell while pretending to be the Black Hood.” 

 

Chic shakes his head no and continues to wail-cry. Jughead whips his fist against the face in front of him, relishing in the resounding crack of the knuckles against Chic’s jaw. 

 

“If you’re not going to man up to it,” he threatens pacing around the dark room, “then you’re going to drag your sorry, bleeding ass out of Riverdale and leave her alone. Because if you don’t,” he pauses to roll his neck, “I’m going to give these brass knuckles back to Sweet Pea here and let him talk you into leaving town.” 

 

To his credit, Sweet Pea looks thoroughly menacing as he growls out, “And I’m much more convincing than Jughead.” Jughead raises his fist again when he hears a commotion. 

 

The following series of actions blur into one: the basement door slams open to reveal Betty, Toni, and FP; FP strong arms Jughead away from a cowering Chic; Betty bursts in,  _ literally  _ guns a-blazing, pulls a small revolver out of her purse, much to Toni’s and everyone else’s surprise, and levels it to Chic’s forehead. 

 

“Tell them,” says Betty, in a saccharin sweet voice as everyone in the room freezes, uncertain of what is about to happen. “Tell them how you followed up on me and my mom ages ago and decided to get revenge for Alice giving you away. Tell them how you bought my phone number off somebody at school and took your chances after the Black Hood rolled into town.  _ Tell them  _ how you called me every day, threatened to kill more people, kill my family, and my boyfriend, if I didn’t do exactly as you said.  _ Tell them, Chic,  _ how you got off on torturing your little sister.” 

 

Jughead, free from FP’s loosened grip, takes a tentative step towards Betty. “Betty, come on, let’s put the gun down. You’re not a killer.” 

 

Betty doesn’t waver. Her blood is boiling, anger radiating from her every nerve ending, but her mind is deadly calm. “I am not putting the gun down. Not until he tells you all what he did.” 

 

And somehow, miraculously, he does. 

 

In an equally calm voice, devoid of any emotion, Chic admits to it all—not to Midge, which is worrisome in that there is  _ still another murderer running around.  _ But there at least there is this one loose end they can finally tie.

 

In the back of the room, FP calls Sheriff Keller and then Alice, while Toni and Sweet Pea flank either side of Chic, ensuring he won’t escape. Jughead sits on the cold cement floor with Betty, who promptly collapsed to her knees when Chic finished speaking, hysterical sobs wracking her whole body. He cradles her into his arms, running a hand through her hair while she cries into his chest. 

 

“It’s over,” he assures her—even though they can’t be sure. “It’s over,” promises Jughead. “I’ve got you, it’s done.”     

.

.

.

_fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> plot is hard. canon plot is even harder. can't wait to see what 2.19 has in store for us in ...approximately 40 minutes. I really got down to the wire. 
> 
> (this was written in a flurry, sorry for any glaring typos.)
> 
> you all are amazing. thank you infinitely for the love. for real.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back on my bullshit wherein I say I'm not writing and then an episode airs and then I have a massive post-ep brainchild I can't ignore. no one is surprised.
> 
> please please please review/comment if you read & enjoyed. it means to the world to us writers who spend days agonizing over whether to post something because you're afraid no one will read/comment/care/etc. 
> 
> find me on tumblr under the same handle


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